Blockade Of Germany SILENT PRESSURE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 24 October 1941, Page 7

Blockade Of Germany SILENT PRESSURE

The overrunning ami occupation hy Her ninny of a very large pari of ! Europe during llie last IS inonilis and her present inroads upon important indtislrial areas of Russia lias erenlcd a widely held impression that Britain's blockade nr the enemy lias lost its of feeli\oncss. Since Germany is now in possession of a vast part of l lie industrial and agricultural resources of the 1 Continent, it. is argued, she can supply all her urgent needs and i> in a heller position Ilian ever. The editor of the "Nineteenth »'< ntur.\ ’ in his monthly survey <»f the war situation for August actually declared that the British blockade of Germany "is already a failure.” If I lie truth were known, Hitler and the German people have an entirely different view of the matter. Unarmed Forces Behind Hitler's spectacular victories that, have gathered in whole countries and placed millions in Europe in servi Hide and misery, an unseen economic struggle has been proceeding for more than two years. It is the same struggle that was carried on during 191 I is unsuspected hy the majority of Lug lislimeii. The contestants, Britain and Germany have again "met in a deadly strife in which no weapon was drawn.” The problem with which Germany was faced from the very Lh-i:inning of the last war was an economic one. She was not self-supporting and the supplies upon which she largely depended for feeding, clothing and munitioning her armies and for supporting the civil population, had to come from overseas. The four years’ Great War was a struggle for the mastery of these supplies. In his “Triumph of l narmed l oro’s. Rear-Admiral M. W. I*. Consult, who was British Naval Attache in Scandinavia from 31)1*2 t<» 1911) wrote that “the real struggle itself was unaccompanied hv any single act of violence: yet it was more deadly in its passive relent.lessuess than the military forces and engines of war on which the whole attention of the world was exclusively riveted. For more than two years Germany maintained an unequal economic struggle with us; she suffered famine, but she won through. Tll 2917 she sealed her own doom hy declaring war upon all merchant shipping in the waters round the British Isles. . . . British trade with Germany’s neutral neighbours ceased, America entered the arena and Germany was reduced to starvation : her troops left the fighting line in search of food.” Tight Blockade There is much on official record describing the desperate straits to which Germany and Austria were reduced in 3918. Hitler himself lias many times admitted the dcadliness of Britain's blockade in the last war. llis repeated denial that Germany’s armies were defeated in the field hut that her collapse was due to the breakdown on the home front tells tbe story. From tbe outbreak of the present war a rigid blockade was imposed on Germany. The sea operations for tbe interception of German, and later, Italian sea-borne trade, have beeu assisted by pre-emption, or the purchasing of goods in neutral markets in competition with enemy buyers, and by tbe Black last system under which neutrals attempting to trade with the enemy are refused exchange, insurance, bunkering and other trade facilities. All enemy long distance commerce lias been prevented. Occasionally a blockade-runner; gets through, but very seldom now. Apart from this, the import and export trade of Germany and Italy outside European waters has practically ceased 10 exist. Every Stale overrun and occupied by the German armies has been blockaded in its turn, and the remaining neutrals, Sweden, Portugal, Spain aud Turkey, have been subjected to a rationing system. The British blockade is tighter aud more efficient in the seas controlled by the Royal Navy than ever it was in the last war. With the neutral exceptions mentioned, virtually the whole overseas import and export trade of Continental Europe has beeu stopped—a truly immense achievement. Economic Warfare The economic warfare waged by Great Britain against Germany Las been far more effective during tbe last six months owing to the increasing measure of support received from the United Slates. The speed with widen the “economic defence” of the Bailed States has forged ahead during that period has closed up many possible leaks and loopholes. All export control system is being applied to North and South America; the ramifications of the financial blockade are expanding; the use of black lists is spreading and skipping is held in a tightening net. It is true that Germany has been able to plunder the occupied countries of vast supplies, and that she continues to extort foodstuffs from them. But a vast proportion of the supplies she has taken cannot he got again. As is pointed out in a cable message today, Germany is making a fatal mistake in sacrificing most valuable future food resources in order tc satisfy immediate needs. She has drained the Low Countries and France of cattle and pigs which cannot be replaced. Europe is far from self-supporting in many varieties of foodstuffs, and tbe dearth of imported fertilizers will he rapidly reflected in the impoverishment of the soil, as was the case in the last war. Lessons Of History The silent, unseen pressure of soa power was decisive iu Napoleon's day as il was in 1914-18. There is no reason to suppose that it will be less effective in this war. Hitler, in the words of Air. Churchill, "may tear large provinces out of Russia, he may march to the Caspian, he may march to the gates of India—all this will avail him nothing. It may spread his curse more widely throughout Europe and Asia. But it will not avert his doom.” It did not avert Napoleon’s doom. Admiral Mahan, writing of the Napoleonic Wars, said that “while Great I Britain was making appalling drafts upon her future iu her ever-mounting | debt, France was exhausting tr capital i which no forcing jH>wer could replace ; by her conscriptions. . . . The credit of France was gone, and her people 1 could not hear any added burdens till ; tin* sea, over which Great Britain moved unresisted, was 01*011 to them [ The people of the Continent had Ik?I come bitterly hostile through the suf ! l'erings caused by the British blockade j aud the Imperial power l.of Napuleotn : could only be maintained by an anuj j which was itself filled by borrowing 01 j the future; iis capital, ’ll" reserve, was ( fast l>ciiig exhausted.” History repeat j ed itself in 3918; it will repeat itseil i eiice more.— ( S.D.W.)